Aftereffects of the Obama Presidency

Originally posted on June 1, 2019 at DaTechGuy Blog.

Like a Very Long Hangover

Some people think that we should leave Former President Obama alone, since he’s not president anymore. Problem is he and his minions won’t leave us alone.

First, there he is in Brazil — the former POTUS — lying about American gun laws.

President Barack Obama said the United States’ gun laws “don’t make much sense” and claimed anybody “can buy machine guns” while speaking at VTEX Day 2019 in Brazil.

“Some of you may be aware our gun laws in the United States don’t make much sense. Anybody can buy any weapon any time. Without much, if any, regulation, they can buy it over the Internet, they can buy machine guns,” Obama told the audience.

It’s hard, however, to get too worked up about BHO’s whoppers. After all, his lips are moving. And, in fairness George W. Bush set the precedent for former POTUSes lying about/criticizing his country on foreign soil.

But, then there’s this.

President Donald Trump said on Thursday [May 30, 2019] that John Kerry “should be prosecuted” for allegedly violating the Logan Act through his conversations with Iran, escalating a feud between his administration and the former [Obama-appointed] secretary of State.

“John Kerry violated the Logan Act,” Trump said during a White House press availability. “He’s talking to Iran and has has many meetings and many phone calls and he’s telling them what to do. That is total violation of the Logan Act.”

The response from Kerry's spokesperson amounted to “we will do what we want since we are the professionals and we know how to do this better than you do, Philistine.”

And it seem that other former Obama officials are intent on interfering in relations between the US and Iran.

This is what you get when you elect a person — BHO — who feels entitled to his elevation and, ironically, feels contempt for those he leads. You get all of his “elite” cohorts, flunkies, and puppeteers who can “see the bigger picture,” the picture that we rabble who would elect some real estate mogul-reality TV star to office cannot see.

And their bigger picture always involves more power for them and elites in other countries — Iran’s mullahs, for example — and less for you.

These “elites” won’t let go without some … incentive. They will have to become convinced that letting go is in their best interest.

And I am convinced that there is a lot of “best interest” located in the declassified files of the Russian Collusion Investigation.

We spent eight years being afraid of what Obama had in store for us next. I want to see what’s in store for him.

Alternative: they could all HAVE A SEAT.

No, I don’t think it will happen either.

ADDITIONAL (1/1/2020): Interesting, in light of the Iran news from the last two days.

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I Don't Miss George W. Bush Anymore

A few days ago, Former President George W. Bush said this:

Americans don’t want to pick cotton at 105 degrees, but there are people who want to put food on their family’s tables and are willing to do that. We should thank them.

This brought to my mind the old slave-owner justification for black slavery and I’m not alone.

Victor Davis Hanson:

Bush put a 21st-century spin on 19th-century plantation owners’ pleas that they needed imported chattel African labor because American workers were neither acclimatized to heat nor inexpensive enough to pick cotton in scorching Southern temperatures.

Additionally, gentleman-farmer Hanson points out that there is more than one area in which the former president demonstrated his cluelessness.

To wit, cotton picking (which I used to do as a child in the 1960s on my father’s small 40-acre cotton allotment) has been widely mechanized for over 50 years. And agriculture now only accounts for about 10-20 percent of illegal alien labor. 

Mechanization has revolutionized farming, even in crops once deemed impossible to automate such as nuts, olives, raisins, and delicate Napa Valley wine grapes. New computerized and laser-calibrated breakthroughs will likely mean that even soft fruit and vegetables will soon be mechanically picked, matching ongoing labor reduction in weeding and irrigation.

Read the whole thing.

Bush’s defense of illegal aliens – essentially a criticism of Donald Trump – wasn’t a surprise to me, though his location while doing it, in Dubai, was(!) After all, as president, he advocated the proposed Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, which put many of his defenders in near revolt, including me.

Also, I remember when neither the former president nor most of his representatives would even try to rebut the Liberal/Leftist attacks on that administration and its policies. They left that up to the New Media: conservative bloggers. Stupid us.

After Barack H. Obama became president, GWB remained silent about his successor, even when the former repeatedly blamed him for bad things that happened from 2009 to 2017.

I understood GWB’s stance at the time, and it also made me think that he was being consistent; he had little to say about his own predecessor, one William J. Clinton, even in the wake of the horror in 2001 which, in my own opinion, was the crowning achievement that rested on the many Islamic terror attacks on the US that occurred during the Clinton Administration and went unanswered by it.

That opinion is why I voted for George W. Bush in 2000.

The silence during his own administration and the silence during the Obama Administration seemed characteristic of GWB. He let his actions do the talking, or so it seemed.

But now Trump's presidency seems to have loosened GWB’s tongue.

Bush's criticism of President Trump itself isn't the point; it’s where he did it, his own hypocrisy, and most importantly, what his criticism is.

I have blogged here about how hard it is to get a steady job here in the sanctuary state that is California even with skills and experience. (I’m pondering a possible 2019 escape.) What about the other Americans citizens here who don’t have skills and experience – especially the very young? I guess they don't matter.

George W. Bush thinks we should all thank the illegal aliens for picking the fruit and vegetables that I can barely afford, does he? I’m a huge berry fan. Strawberries run over $3 a pound.

But if I wanted to eat shit, literally and figuratively, pennies.

And, it’s a safe bet that the families of Katie Steinle, Jamiel Shaw II, Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens would have two words other than 'Thank You" to say to illegal aliens and to George W. Bush.

On the other hand, one of those words is probably ‘you.’ Co-sign.

UPDATE: Thanks, Glenn. And thanks for the donations, folks!
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Our Power, Should We Choose It

For better or worse, Donald Trump is changing the perception of the presidency. Unlike George W. Bush, he overtly pushes back at his foes with the benefit of Social Media. (Barack Obama pushed back at his, but was more deceptively polite about it -- usually.) Many don’t like President Trump's tactics and say that his salvos are beneath “presidential dignity,” whatever that means. And perhaps they are right.

But I think that we have elevated what it means to be president far too high, especially with the last president and with this one.

I’ve said before that many Americans look to a president as a savior/Savior – or as the Devil. And I can’t say that I am not guilty of this overestimation with respect to Former President Obama. Like many others, I feared that he would destroy this country. Now, I’m not saying that the former president and his backers weren’t trying to do that; what I am saying it that we are much more resilient that we thought. In retrospect, it’s reassuring to discover that he didn’t have the power to do it and I assert that neither does Donald Trump.

Though my inner conspiracy-theorist says that there are hidden and not-so-hidden actors still trying to split this country apart, the power to resist it remains with us, the People. And that power is spiritual.

I hope more of us realize this.

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Memories: When the Press Failed to Recognize a Real Turkey

Well, there are a lot of instances from which to choose, but one stands out, considering the day upcoming.

On Thanksgiving Day 2003, then-President George W. Bush ducked the press and surprised the troops in Iraq with a personal visit. Recordings of the visit were given to the press only after the president had left Iraq.

In the photo, GWB was holding a real turkey, but the press, most of whom had never eaten a meal in a military dining facility on a holiday, assumed that the turkey was plastic.

For a long time, it was called Bush's "fake turkey moment" because it was the best lie that the leftist press could come up with to tarnish his bonding moment with the troops and public relations/OPSEC coup.

And the funniest thing about the lie is that whenever someone repeated it, he/she was automatically outed as a parrot.  In military dining facilities when a holiday turkey is being served, there are always two birds: a display turkey and the turkey being served. The turkey being served--often by senior officers and NCOs--is already sliced up and ready to be eaten.

But all of the turkeys are always real. The display turkey will be leftovers for the next day--just like at home.

Ah, if only the press confined its lies to turkey composition.

But that should tell everyone how easy it is to pull the wool over many million sets of eyes regarding any topic.

Happy Thanksgiving Day.

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Every Tuesday and Saturday, I blog at the award-winning DaTechGuyBlog. Latest post: Where the True Line is Drawn

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